


Refraction

by occasional_boy_reporter



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Ahamkara shenanigans, Angst, Do people even tag Cayde's death, Established Relationship, Fix-It of Sorts, Hand-Wavy Light Phenomenon (Destiny), M/M, More tags to be added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25466350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/occasional_boy_reporter/pseuds/occasional_boy_reporter
Summary: Zavala never expected a final meeting with Cayde but his wish to say goodbye might be the very thing to drag Cayde back from the grave.
Relationships: Cayde-6 & Ikora Rey, Cayde-6/Zavala (Destiny), Osiris/Saint-14 (Destiny)
Comments: 63
Kudos: 109





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Gonna try to keep this one short and manageable. Emphasis on try.  
> This will be romantic as hell and I'm gonna start off at mature but I know how my writing tends to go so don't be surprised if that M slips into an E.

It isn't a sound that wakes Zavala in the dead of night. It's a subtle change in the room- a shift in pressure, in aura maybe. Something he can't quite catalogue but something somehow familiar enough that he eases into coherence instead of reliving the harsh jolt of nightmares past. But even in the absence of all other natural fear responses, Zavala's heart races. 

He forces a single breath to center himself, to remind himself, and opens his eyes.

His bed is still half empty. The second pillow lies crumpled in its usual spot, still dented by the heavy head that last rested there. 

Cayde never did see the point in making a bed he knew he was going to sleep in again.

Zavala breathes once more when a sharp, familiar blade of remorse sticks between his ribs. If he'd watched more closely, spoken more openly… It doesn't matter now. Wishing can not change the past.

A very faint voice whispers a deceptively helpful, _'Yes, it can.'_

The glint of precious metal draws bright eyes to the Ahamkara claw on Zavala's desk where he's been contemplating the old trophy for several days.

Tonight isn't the first night he's heard it.

With the customary precaution of silver coating taken, it isn't immediately clear to Zavala if the voice exists beyond his own mind. Either possibility is unsettling. He knew it was foolish to bring the bone out in his...compromised state.

The voice does not speak again, even after Zavala has given it a shamefully long amount of time to do so. The Awoken wonders if he only needs to open his mouth. Maybe a single question or a simple acknowledgement is all it takes. He had hunted the Ahamkara but, for his own safety, he had never fully entertained the thought of a contract.

Ikora's face- stricken in grief- flashes across his mind's eye and although the twist of anguish had been for Cayde, Zavala expects her expression would be very much the same for him if he managed to fall victim to the consequences of a wish-making. He cannot see her like that again. Especially not twice in so many weeks. First thing in the morning, Zavala will remove the claw. He'll stuff it back into its silver lockbox and hide it deep in a private vault. One he refuses to memorize the passcode to.

He settles into the long process of falling asleep again and pushes away the very idea that he might be disappointed by the bone's silence.

He gently pinches the corner of the empty pillow beside him- not enough to disturb the carefully preserved shape- just enough to feel something real as he closes his eyes. 

Maybe it's time to remove it. Maybe tomorrow it all goes. The pillow, the bone, the stray tin of polish and soft, tiny brushes for all the places an Exo can't reach themselves. Fabric twists and Zavala's fingers ache from clenching. 

Maybe not tomorrow.

Before he can slip away to the comfort of at least partial oblivion, something sparks along Zavala’s shoulder and he jerks away with the full force of survival instincts yanked to the surface. He rolls off the far side of the bed, pulse thundering, sheets whirling, and fists crackling with Arc power before his feet even hit the floor.

There, along Zavala's hastily vacated side of the bed, stands Cayde-6, resplendent in molten gold as if caught in the moment of summoning a Golden Gun.

Zavala's heart stops completely before beating twice as hard.

"No." Zavala spits the denial as his only defense against rising dread. He forgets about the sheets twisted around his feet and stumbles into the side of his desk. He gropes for the Ahamkara claw blindly when he dare not take his eyes off Cayde. The Exo's shape is so clear, details all there. Words tear at Zavala's throat, choke him and force his eyes to burn as he squeezes the bone fragment. "No, no, no. I didn't say it! I didn't think it. I didn't-"

He holds the forbidden word tightly behind pursed lips. Isn't wanting the same thing as wishing? Is longing enough to form a contract?

A mistake. It is a mistake. Zavala growls at the vision- a sound he's only made in the most desperate moments of his life. “Go away!”

Cayde blinks golden eyes.

Blue.

They should be blue and the thought is another small knife between Zavala's ribs. But every inch of this Cayde is like perpetual Solar energy given life and form. The illusion cocks its head slowly

“Shit. Can you see me?"

Zavala's mouth hangs agape, startled, until he works himself back to fury.

"Whatever trick you think you can pull or offer you might try to make-"

"You can see me!" The shimmering Cayde's insistence rings with a far too familiar sort of elation and Zavala stumbles back the moment Cayde advances.

"I…" It's clear now how so many could have fallen prey before the Great Hunt. Just to hear Cayde's voice again is too much.

Zavala crumbles so thoroughly that he doesn't know he's falling until Cayde is grabbing his hands and pulling him upright.

"Hey! Whoah. I know I didn't exactly call ahead but-" 

Not just an illusion then. The doppelganger's grip feels just like the real thing. That reassuring pulse of a squeeze, the slow swipe of a thumb along the inside of Zavala's wrist that still pulses with uneasy Arc energy. The Awoken doesn't hear a word of the gentle chattering that follows, too wrapped up in the wonder of the apparition's seeming authenticity.

It isn't until those shining fingers travel back down to his clenched fist and slowly peel back his fingers to see the Ahamkara claw that has been cutting into Zavala's palm that the Commander hears again.

"Zavala? What the hell are you doing with that?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the wonderful interest and comments on ch 1. It was very encouraging to see! Can you believe I wanted to write this pretty much the moment I finished playing Forsaken? (Like...not recently. Like the day after the expansion came out.) Took me a while. Lol

The Awoken stares at the blood-smeared claw trapped between his pale palm and the radiant light of Cayde's. What is he doing? What a cruel question. He answers anyway, unable to deny even the phantom of Cayde. "I don't know. I think I…"

A sensation rises in Zavala. This one rare but not entirely foreign. He suspects he's about to become ill in a most violent way.

"Why?"

After forcing down his panic, Zavala's eyes snap up to find the source of such a secretly vicious but outwardly gentle question. Even without the familiar blue, he thinks he can see the shift of heartfelt inquiry in eyes that cycle from gold to orange and back. What a terrible, beautiful trick he has fallen for.

He pulls away from the apparition's touch. If the Commander crushes the claw to dust in his hand, will Cayde disappear? Fingers twitch but do not curl. Even the last of defensive Arc energy slips away from his palms. Zavala laughs bitterly at the overwhelming thoroughness of his own weakness.

"For me?" Cayde whispers. Zavala, to his distant shame, cannot think of this glowing creature as anything but _Cayde_ each time it speaks. "You would do that for me?"

Zavala cannot bear to meet that perfect mockery of a wondering gaze any longer. Cayde- 

No, the _thing. It_ knows. Of course it knows. By the very nature of its creation, it must know the answers! If he...it... already knows, what is the point of hiding now?

The Ahamkara claw falls to the sheets at their feet, abandoned after its purpose served, and Zavala reaches for Cayde.

When you're already on the road to hell, you may as well enjoy the scenery.

But Zavala's hands- eagerly flying to familiar places at the nape of the Exo's neck and the square set of a metal jaw- pass straight through those features. Light swirls off blue fingertips like the faintest whisper of smoke and both men sway uncertainly as they recover from the kiss that _didn't_ happen.

A tentative touch, this time to Cayde's shoulder, yields the same frustratingly ethereal result. Zavala reaches for Cayde's hands- where they have absolutely, tangibly touched just moments ago- and slides through the fingers and palms that are cupped to meet him.

Cayde frames the problem with his characteristic level of elegance. "What the fuck?"

"I don't understand." Zavala frowns as he again tries to hold Cayde's glowing hand but is met with nothing but glittering air and a sleepy sort of buzz that settles in the joints of his own fingers. "Is this my punishment already?"

Cayde looks very serious for a moment. "Punishment?"

"Yes," Zavala chokes on it. "To feel you again for the briefest moment and then to only look and not to touch."

Cayde's mouth opens uncertainly and closes even more so. Then it flies open with the newfound energy of realization. "Zavala! Your fists! Your Light!"

The Titan is slow to comprehend but, as he clenches his fist to puzzle it out, he's hit by the same thought that must have struck Cayde. The only thing that changed between their first touch of hands and now, was the second skin of Arc energy that had sprung to Zavala's hands at the threat of a fight and receded at the possibility of...something else.

Zavala's Light had been the bridge. He wills it to be again. This time, when he reaches with static crackling around his fingernails and enough Light to make his fingers positively stiff, he catches Cayde's shimmering fingers and squeezes. Solid. Almost real.

The Titan looks with new eyes. Cayde isn't just made of light. He's made of _the Traveler's Light_. Zavala had it right from the first moment he equated Cayde's brilliance to a Golden Gun. And now that their hands make firm contact once again, Zavala realizes the buzz in his joints as he'd passed through Cayde was the familiar push of Arc energy against Solar as they fought to inhabit the same space. If that's so…

Cayde chuffs with an easy grin. "Heh. I nailed it in one. You're welcome."

Zavala calls Light to bloom beneath his lips in a well-practiced feat of control and kisses Cayde with the force of every second of his regret. Everywhere he feels the tingle of Cayde's Light like a question, Zavala answers with his own until it feels as if they'd never been separated by time or space or death. When his heart can't take the relief any longer, Zavala pauses to center himself before the urge to weep can overtake him. Cayde's hands hover along the Awoken's back and Zavala offers them a platform of power on which to rest.

"You're made of Light," Zavala breathes out in wonder at the realization but then his brow begins to furrow where it rests carefully against Cayde's. "But why would, how could, an Ahamkara's construct be made of the Traveler's Light?"

"Uh, wait," Cayde taps a single finger at Zavala's back. He leans away, sparkling eyes wide and brow hitched uncertainly. "You think…"

Cayde points at the Ahamkara claw on the floor with the same sort of barely contained horror that had plagued Zavala from the moment he rolled out of bed.

"You think you actually _wished_ for me?"

The Titan stares and his brow furrows even further. "Didn't I?"

Cayde shakes his head in that halting way of his that says he's struggling to clear his mind while simultaneously processing something outrageous. "Wow. Wow! I'm flattered as hell, Zavala. Really! It's crazy you would even consider it! But I think you got it wrong."

Zavala forgets how to breathe. When he finally sucks in a sharp breath, he comes to the only conclusion he can. "We need Ikora."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doing a big WIP Wrap-Up on Tumblr and trying to complete as many older fics as possible before new year!

Ikora nods politely but her eyes are full of barely contained pity. "I understand. You're still grieving."

"No!" Zavala burries his face in his hands for a moment before he attempts to explain for the third time. "I mean, yes, that is a fair assumption, but I'm telling you Cayde is back. He's here. Real."

"Dreams often seem more concrete when strong emotions are wrapped up with memories. But we have to move forward. Cayde is dead, Zavala."

"That particular point may still be true but whatever he is, Cayde is _here_!"

Ikora surges to her feet. Her own lingering pain combined with patience finally stretched too far- even after trying so hard to accommodate for what she sees as Zavala's heartbroken delusions- Ikora moves toward a stationary computer on the wall. "I'm calling Saladin for you."

Her fingers pound against the screen as she calls up the contact information. Zavala stands with another protest on his lips. They both freeze when a gold spectre drifts into the room.

"Hey!" Cayde seems to literally glow brighter with enthusiasm. “Look what I just found out I can do!”

Cayde steps backwards and disappears through the solid wall. Half a beat later, his head and shoulders poke back into the room.

"Freaking cool, right?"

Ikora staggers and leans hard against the nearest supportive surface...which happens to be Zavala.

“Zavala.” She stills as if waiting for Cayde to disappear. When he doesn't, Ikora moves on to rationalizing. "Zavala, I think _I'm_ having some kind of grief-fueled delusional episode.”

The Awoken pats his friend sympathetically. “No, you're not.”

“You can't. You can't be…”

“This is why I told you to wait," Zavala frowns at Cayde who hunches sheepishly. Zavala calls light to his hand and pulls Cayde closer by the wrist so that Ikora can see him clearly "It's him Ikora. It's really him.”

Her eyes shimmer and her forehead scrunches. She tightens her jaw and pulls her lips tight. For a moment, Ikora is on the verge of tears. But then her entire face pulls a 180 and she barks out, "You ass!"

Ikora's open palm flies on course for Cayde's face but whifs right through the Exo. As Ikora processes her newest shock, the former Hunter Vanguard sighs.

“Yeah," Cayde shrugs, "I guess I'd take a shot at me too.”

Ikora starts to crumble from the head down. Tears are beginning to well, for real this time, when Cayde panics.

“Hey! Hey, no. No, no, no. It's ok. Here look, look, you can slap me! You just gotta use your Light." Cayde pats his own cheek in offering.

Zavala grabs one of Ikora's hands to demonstrate the second skin of Light and she picks it up and pieces it all together in the space of a breath like the genius she is. She lunges forward and Cayde braces for the blow.

Instead of a hand wreathed in Light to deliver a slap, Ikora covers herself in Radiance and envelopes Cayde in a crushing hug.

“Whoah! Yeah... that'll...that'll work.”

"You ass," Ikora insists, but this time it's fragile. "You left us and I missed you. I missed you."

"I...um..." Cayde struggles until he finally returns the tight grip and says the only thing he can. "Sorry."

Ikora huffs a laugh. "I always thought your jokes were funny, even when they weren't.”

Now it's Cayde's turn to laugh. “Alright, Ikora, no need to fluff a man's ego just because he's dead.”

They all sober at that.

"Are you?" Like flicking a switch, Ikora is on the hunt for facts.

"Dead?" Cayde looks from Ikora to Zavala and back again. "Pretty sure. I do remember biting it. Speaking of-"

"He's taken care of," Zavala assures with a squeeze of Cayde's wrist. He'd asked to see Uldren's body himself but had to eventually settle for the Young Wolf's eyewitness account when Petra pushed back. Zavala prefers not to think on it and instead draws them back to the present “How long do you think Cayde will be here, Ikora?”

“I don't know." It's obvious how much that hurts her to say. “I don't even know what he is."

Zavala summons his courage and clears his throat. "As to that particular point, I have a theory."

Zavala reveals the silver-coated Ahamkara fragment tucked into his hip pocket.

Ikora exhales in disappointment. "Zavala, no."

It does not escape Zavala that she is not surprised. Disappointed but not surprised. 

The Warlock Vanguard shakes her head slowly in thought. "Cayde's form is unusual. All records of Ahamkara visions point to a full illusion of normality. Unless you chose for him to appear this way."

Zavala surveys Cayde's shifting golden form then remembers original bright blue eyes. "No, I don't think I would."

Still caught in the loose loop of Ikora's arms, Cayde leans back to make enough room and raises his hand as if asking for permission to speak. "For what it's worth, I don't feel like a murder dragon's mean trick."

"You know what he reminds me of?" Ikora's brow hikes and her eyes dance with possibilities. "One of Osiris' reflections."

Zavala's face lights and he nods in excited agreement.

Cayde hums. "Mmkay. On board with the plan. One of you two is going to have to call, though. Pretty sure, Osiris will hang up if a dead guy calls him."


	4. Chapter 4

Osiris does not hang up on them. Though his scowl is perfectly evident beneath his mask when his eyes settle on Cayde.

Sagira materializes into frame to quip, “Well, this wasn’t on my list of weird possibilities today.”

Cayde offers a little wave. Sagira returns the gesture with a wiggling nib. Osiris frowns harder.

“What have you done?”

Ikora controls her face much better but the mirror of her mentor’s expression still shines through in response to the old Warlock's gruff question. She chastises with the ease of someone who spent years doing it toward the end of Osiris’ reign as Vanguard. “An accusation is no way to begin a conversation, Osiris.”

Osiris does not relent. “Why call if not to address the shining elephant in the room? And why would he be there if not for some sort of ill-advised tinkering with paracasual forces?”

“You’re one to talk,” Sagira whispers flatly. Her Guardian’s eyes narrow.

“This may have been my doing,” Zavala admits with resignation as he leans into better view behind Ikora’s shoulder. He offers the Ahamkara claw up for inspection.

Osiris’ brow rises so high that it disappears beneath the golden beak of his headgear. “An Ahamkara bone. I didn’t think you had that particular brand of foolish hope in you, Zavala.”

Ikora saves them all from a long moment of watching Zavala silently turn purple in shame. “Our issue lies in execution. We’re uncertain if a wish for Cayde’s return was even made.”

“Oh, you would know,” Sagira bobs forward as Osiris sighs and leans further back. “I think you missed the Ahamkara Hunt, Ikora, but trust me when I say no wish-giver would miss the opportunity to wave a contract in your face before gleefully handing you a pen.”

“Zavala, did you sign some-”

“She means a metaphorical contract, Cayde.”

“...I knew that,” the glowing Exo utters as Ikora continues.

“Then we agree it is unlikely a wish was made. That still does not answer the question of origin.”

“He is composed of Solar Light?”

Ikora is unshaken by her mentor’s correct assessment. “Yes. And he may only interact physically with other Light.”

“Would love to get a pizza though. If that’s somehow an option.”

Zavala quietly shushes Cayde with a pleading look.

After a long look to Sagira, in which Ikora assumes Guardian and Ghost are consulting telepathically, Osiris grunts. “I’m not understanding why you called me for this.”

Ikora purses her lips and cocks her head, almost annoyed. She begins with the five words that have sparked more Warlock duels or academic brawls than any other in history, “I had thought it obvious. Cayde so closely resembles your Echoes that I thought you might offer some insight to his creation.”

Osiris snorts.

Sagira’s components twitch. “You cannot create Light copies of other people complete with personalities and memories. We know. Osiris has been-”

A gloved hand pushes Sagira aside and Osiris' words spring up roughly to interrupt whatever she might have said. “I create Echoes of myself by allowing my Light to reverberate between Sagira and myself until there is enough of my essence to coalesce into form. The only way for Cayde to exist as a being of Light is if some unknown force deigned to create and deliver him to you-”

And here Osiris does not quite roll his eyes but he does look away with an almost longing drift of features before huffing at the absurdity of fairy tales.

“Or?” Ikora prompts, sensing her mentor’s resolution to another thought.

Zavala has never once seen the great Osiris uncomfortable with presenting a hypothesis- no matter how poorly that hypothesis is bound to be received. But now, the Warlock positively squirms before zeroing in on the Awoken Titan.

“Or,” Osiris does not let his eyes waver from Zavala despite the stretching unease they both feel across space, “someone has exchanged enough Light with Cayde over the years to have left a copy of the man formed in his absence.”


	5. Chapter 5

_ Zavala might have considered himself several hundred years too old for embarrassment. Still his ears burn when the former-Vanguard Commander Osiris asks both Ikora and Cayde to step out of the room. He struggles to form expectations for the conversation to come. He does not expect the softening lines around the old Warlock’s eyes or Sagira’s encouraging bob before she floats away.  _

_ “My Echoes are purely me,” Osiris reiterates as he removes his helm and scarf. “My Light reflects off Sagira and, the more I supply, the more the Light seeks out reminiscent pieces of itself to bond with until a copy is created. But the sort of...conferences...I suspect you held with Cayde did not result in a singular source redirecting against itself.” _

_ Zavala nods without divulging anything further. _

_ Osiris, for his part, seems almost grateful for that. “That exchange of Light has ensured a deep familiarity between wielders far beyond the physical.”  _

_ There is something in the way the Warlock looks at Zavala. It is not quite the pity of Ikora’s earlier coaching. It is something more personal.  _

_ “Barring some of the most horrid circumstances, a Guardian’s Light does not vanish when they die. If its path is unobstructed, the Light will return to its original source and rejoin the Traveler. But, sometimes, the Light of a dead Guardian might catch on the lens of other familiar forces and appear altered for a time before it too finds its way back to the Traveler.”  _

_ Zavala’s lips peel apart slowly when he’s finally ready to speak. “You are saying that I am the lens through which Cayde’s Light has taken form?” _

_ Osiris very nearly smirks. It is not wholly friendly. “One last visit. You are one of the lucky few, Zavala, to be graced with this refraction of Light.”  _

_ His words are wistful but pained and, above all, knowing.  _

_ Zavala scrambles against a suddenly ticking clock with no visible face. “How long will he be here?” _

_ Osiris is late to answer. Unintentionally cruel now that Zavala knows there is a limit. Osiris' eventual admission is whisper soft so as not to disturb the dust that settles over his own memory. “I’ve seen this once before. It lasted no time at all.” _

*  
  


Zavala finds Cayde and Ikora on the Warlock Vanguard’s balcony. Cayde's legs stick like two glowing torches between the railing and kick idly out over the City. Ikora's face glows in the reflection of Cayde and her eyes gleam nearly as bright as the Exo's. The two laugh with a sort of ease never seen before and the Commander is almost too tender-hearted to interrupt after concluding his call with Osiris.

*

_“Is there anything that can be done to extend Cayde's time?”_

_ “Zavala-” _

_ “What did you try?” He does not ask **if** Osiris tried. He can read the answer to that in Osiris’ grimace. _

_ “Everything. We tried everything.” _

*

Cayde's arms wave wildly as he recounts some story that maybe he's told Ikora before but maybe one she did not appreciate quite as much before as she does today. Somewhere between impressions of some twins he met, Cayde's entire body dims. Zavala pauses mid-inhale.

*

_ The Titan’s muscles are clenched to fight something he now knows is beyond fighting. “Can you at least tell me how long?” _

_ It is clear the memory is painful but Zavala prays Osiris will endure it for Ikora even if not for him. “In the case I observed, there was very little Light left to return to the Traveler. Despite the strength of any bond that may have been nurtured, the copy was weak and its presence short-lived. A few minutes. He was there one breath and gone the next.” _

_ Zavala, suddenly, becomes very aware of his own lungs.  _

_ Osiris notes the difference in the Commander but does not comment. Instead he offers one small grain of hope. "Your case may be different. Your opportunity a little longer. But still easy to squander.” _

_ The message is loud and clear. _

_ “Then I will not.” _

*

Cayde glows brighter- maybe an affected cheer or genuine joy in seeing Zavala again- before he flickers like a loose bulb. “Zavala! You missed it! Ikora and I were talking about how I can’t touch you guys without the Light but I can walk on the floors but also pop through walls and how messed up that is and I got so in my head about it that I ended up sinking halfway through the floor!”

“The key is not to think about it,” Ikora reminds gently. She meets Zavala's eyes and he knows she had noticed the flicker as well.

“Which you’d think I’d be better at but it’s kind of like realizing you can see your nose and not being able to unsee it. Man, I used to love to plant that in Kinderguardian heads.”

Ikora smacks him lightly with a glittering hand but laughs along with him.

Zavala is thankful. For this moment alone, he could be satisfied.

“Well?” Cayde stares expectantly when Zavala makes no move to join them. “I’m still guessing that old bone had nothing to do with me or else you’d be kicking me off this ledge with an Arc boot. So what am I? An Echo?”

Zavala forces his throat open to allow the words out. “A collection of refracted Light.”

“That’s pretty cool!” Cayde turns to Ikora to be sure she’s suitably impressed. She is. Satisfied with Ikora’s grin, Cayde turns back over his shoulder to take in Zavala’s full form. “But I don’t think you’d be wearing that look if you had all good news.”

Zavala joins his fireteam on the balcony floor, carefully folding his legs and settling his heart before delivering the news.

“It is a temporary condition.”

“How long do I have, Doc?”

Zavala does not smile at the cheek. “Enough that you might say goodbye.”

The air is still until the slightest shift in pressure as Ikora wraps her hand in void Light and joins it with Cayde’s.

“Would you like me to call anyone?” Zavala makes the offer as he takes Cayde’s other hand. “Amanda maybe? Shiro-4? Shaxx or Marcus?”

Cayde briefly considers before gently extracting himself from his fireteam’s grip and leaning back on his hands as if to deter further holding. “Naw.”

“Are you sure?” Ikora asks with the smallest hint of a frown pulling between concerned eyes.

The glowing Exo shrugs. “I figure I already made ‘em miserable once. Probably better not to yank everyone back again. Let everyone...get on with their lives and all that jazz.”

Ikora begins but never quite finishes. “If that is what you want…” 

“We will let it be your decision,” Zavala agrees even though he feels a traitorous flutter of his own heart and he knows he is just relieved to not share limited time with an unknown number of other people.

Cayde unleashes a loud bark of laughter to shatter the space around them. “If Ikora tried to hit me, I can’t imagine what Amanda might do! Light or no, pretty sure she’d find a way to kick my ass. Hate to take that beating with me to...ya know-”

Cayde waves at the general curve of the Traveler.

“-wherever.”

Zavala hasn’t taken his eyes off Cayde since the moment their hands parted. Still, he’s somehow startled when Cayde turns to him and says, “Think I could have another quick minute with just me and Ikora? Need to apologize for a couple more things. Then I’ll come to you?”

Selfishness has never been one of Zavala’s weaknesses but he feels it so keenly now. “Can you promise?”

Cayde lets his hand hover over Zavala's for the fraction of the second it takes the Awoken to notice and call on his Light. When it's possible to do so, Cayde pats Zavala's hand and whispers, “I promise.”


	6. Chapter 6

In his silver reflection, Zavala looks tired. Which is only fair because he is all but drained by the time he settles onto his bed to wait and think. He turns the Ahamkara claw over in his hand and his face stretches and distorts in a dance much like the one churning his gut.

Cayde is not a wish fulfilled with a hidden price tag but rather a shooting star Zavala was lucky enough to catch for a fleeting glimpse.

But can he truly be satisfied with that? The Commander had tried to tell himself that the final reunion of their firetem- Cayde and Ikora laughing so open and affectionate and together- had been enough. Maybe it had been enough. In that moment. Now, in this brief moment without Cayde at his side, it is too easy to remember how things were less than an hour ago.

The loss of Cayde had already been difficult. Pushing through grief was like wading through thorns the first time. Will it hurt more the second time?

_"Why should there even be a second time?"_

Zavala closes his fist around the silver bone and tries not to repeat the whispered question.

But his palm sweats around the claw and his pulse echoes 'Why?' with steady insistence.

"Zavala!"

The bed creaks when the Awoken nearly startles out of his skin.

"Sorry!" Cayde rambles as he slips fully into the room via the closed door. "Sorry. I'm just really starting to get the hang of this phasing thing. I can go back out and try to knock."

"Cayde…" Zavala has half risen from the bed, fearful the other man might actually disappear again. Even if it's behind the door, Zavala's heart cannot take it.

"Hey, hey I'm only joking," Cayde soothes as he slips into Zavala's orbit again. 

Their bodies fit so easily together, arms never colliding- sweeping along familiar trajectories- as fingers alight on arms and chests. They don't embrace but they keep each other upright and present at the pads of Light-infused digits.

Cayde literally lights up the dim room but Zavala refuses to close his eyes despite their proximity.

"I promised," Cayde reminds with a tip of his horn to softly tap Zavala's forehead.

He did. And he followed through. That alone is something of a balm. Zavala allows his head to rest against Cayde's and to breathe in the faintly scorched air as the Exo's warmth worms its way into the farthest reaches of Zavala's body.

"You really downplayed it back there for me and Ikora, didn't you?" Cayde pokes a blue cheek in accusation. There's no doubt in his following statement. "I don't have a lot of time."

Zavala smiles despite the ache in his chest. "It's a shame most people don't know how clever you really are."

Cayde guides Zavala to the bed and they sit in the center, facing each other, knees out and brushing in a position practiced countless late nights.

"I'd like to take that but I'm not all that clever, really," Cayde chuckles. "It's just your poker face has always been shit."

"I didn't want to pressure you with a time limit."

"Oh." Cayde wraps his hands around his own ankles and leans back in patently false understanding. "So you didn't want me to say goodbye to you too. Ok. Then I can just go haunt Executor Hideo until my clock runs out. Actually, that could be good for you. If I-"

Zavala takes his hands. Cayde's mouth shuts instantly. It doesn't last long.

"I want to say I'm sorry."

"There's no need."

Cayde shakes his head but he doesn't pull away from Zavala's touch. "Ikora was the same way; punched me when I tried to apologize the second round. I just gotta get it out there. That I'm sorry for lying and sneaking off and...trying to do it without you two."

"Then I am sorry as well. You felt you couldn't trust us or that I couldn't trust you. That should never have been the case. I should have tried harder to make that clear. So I am sorry."

Cayde blinks molten eyes and squirms just on the edge of disbelief before he gently deflects. "Well, aren't we just a couple of sorry, old men!"

But even over the sound of forced laughter Zavala susses out the trickle of relief.

"I'm sorry." Zavala says it again. He waits.

Cayde squezes the hands in his and pretends to cough past some sticky emotions. "Apology accepted."

It's impossible to tell who moves first. The only thing that matters is that Zavala's lips are tingling with Light and ready for the moment he and Cayde meet. Power bursts- overeager in the moment of contact- and the backlash of Arc causes the Awoken's cheek to twitch, pulling his kiss wide. Cayde snickers as Zavala flexes away the sensation by dropping his jaw. 

In the spirit of 'no time wasted', Zavala throws himself back into the kiss. With a hand on each side of a radiant face, Zavala pulls Cayde closer even as he rises up on his knees to get a better angle, to tip his head, and let Light drip onto the tip of his tongue before dipping inside the Solar hot cavern of Cayde's mouth.

The Exo whines and Zavala echoes it breathlessly before he moves to shuffle closer and hisses instead in pain.

Cayde's disgust rings out before Zavala has quite placed the cause of the throbbing slice on his knee. "Ugh. This thing again?"

When Zavala angles his leg to see what Cayde sees, the Ahamkara claw he had all but forgotten dangles from his ripped sleeping pants for a fraction of a second before falling back to the bed. The Awoken picks it up gingerly, concious of the small streak of blood on the tip.

"You could stay," Zavala breathes out all at once. "Or come back with your body. Or even flesh and blood if you wanted."

Cayde blinks, face still held relatively captive by one of Zavala's hands. Glowing features twist and fall before settling into something soft. "I'm tickled that you feel that way. That you would consider that for me. But I don't want that. Not for any of us."

Cayde kisses Zavala soft and sure and final. He guides Zavala's hand to the edge of the bed and lets the Commander choose the moment to turn his palm and let the claw fall to the floor.

Once the sound of bone against floor fades, Cayde loops his arms around Zavala's neck and leans back to give the Awoken a devilish look.

"You know what I think we _should_ do? Have one last killer roll in the sack."

"Cayde-"

"It's a dying man's last wish!" He rolls forward, thighs straddling thighs and upper body flush with Zavala's as he crosses his arms behind a blue neck. He leaves no room for thought and therefore no room for argument long before he drives the final nail into his perfect trap. "I wanna feel alive with you one more time, Zavala."


End file.
